Father of France

Chapter 122 Standardized Urban Construction

As the model of an agricultural empire pursued by the United States, France, like some other countries, naturally has some of the problems inherent in an agricultural nation, such as the multiple financial crises it has experienced.

From the Capetian dynasty onward, they faced a financial crisis that seemed to appear at any time but was always present.

The rulers of the Capetian dynasty would select the leeks in the field for a harvest, and the Knights Templar were also wiped out because of their great wealth.

If even the powerful Knights Templar, who could rival monarchs, met such a fate, then the Jews, who also possessed great wealth but were far less militarily powerful than the Knights Templar, were in even worse shape.

From the 12th century onwards, using anti-Semitism to solve financial problems was a routine method for successive French kings. King Philip II of France was the first to order the expulsion of Jews from royal lands and confiscate their property.

A hundred years later, Philip IV the Handsome once again carried out a large-scale expulsion of Jews in order to seize their wealth and enrich the national treasury.

A hundred years later, Charles VI issued the last great expulsion of the Middle Ages, and for nearly four centuries thereafter, Jews were officially forbidden from living in most parts of France.

These were merely symbolic events similar to the Three Wu and One Zong. The four-century gap did not mean that France let the Jews go, but rather that the Jews' living space had been controlled to a certain extent. There was no need for the French king to make it public knowledge; a simple hint was enough to easily reap the benefits.

Not to mention Vichy France, which had just ended, was invited to participate in Germany's Final Solution, expelling 80,000 Jews from its territory, of whom only 2,000 survived.

However, Vichy France only handed over its own Jews to Germany; there were still Jews in Algeria, but the number was small, less than 100,000.

The main reason was that Vichy France did not have strong enough control over Algeria, so it could only strip Jews of their citizenship and implement racially discriminatory laws against them, thus allowing these Jews to survive.

However, Vichy France only lasted for three years, and its impact on the previously normal lives of Algerian Jews was not significant enough.

Previously, as French citizens, Jewish children could attend French-style public schools, which laid the foundation for their future careers requiring specialized knowledge, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, and civil servants.

Many Jews became successful merchants, especially in major cities such as Algiers and Oran. Overall, the Jewish community's wealth increased significantly during the colonial period, forming a stable middle class.

Koeman couldn't very well target the French immigrants in Algeria, but Israel was on the verge of being established, and these Algerian Jews held a significant share of Algeria's wealth. If these Jews could return to Israel, that would be ideal.

This will definitely require some maneuvering. There's still time before Israel is established, so Koeman can first cut off Algeria's route back to mainland France. Fortunately, Algeria is already under military control. Since it's under military rule, some military law can be used to treat the local immigrants.

This is why Koeman asked Martin about the situation in Syria. He was actually concerned about the establishment of Israel, but because of his presence, the establishment of Israel might encounter some setbacks.

For example, the French First Army consisted of several Alawite, Druze, and Sunni units, totaling four or five divisions and seventy to eighty thousand potential French soldiers who had participated in the World War.

It's important to know that the scale of the first Middle East war was actually quite small. At the start of the war, the total strength of the Arab coalition was only a little over 10,000, and Israel only had a little over 20,000. After a few months of fighting, the Israeli Defense Forces increased to 100,000, while the Arab coalition only had a little over 60,000.

A war of this scale is not considered large, let alone in the Soviet-German War, or even in France. It is not as large as the war between the French and Italian armies in the southeast during the French Campaign.

If Syria suddenly gains four or five divisions that participated in world wars, Israel's path to statehood would certainly face a severe test if war broke out.

This is a side effect of the butterfly effect caused by Koeman, so he felt that after cutting off the possibility of Algerian Jews returning to France, Israel might not be a bad option.

"Algerian Jews, Israel?" Perhaps because he had a cup of coffee, Koeman was in quite good spirits, still pondering how to proceed as he walked out of the coffee shop.

Now that Japan had surrendered and it was September, before Coman returned to Paris, the issue of the use of prisoners of war, which France had paid special attention to at the Potsdam Conference, was naturally resolved.

After being imprisoned for more than three months and spending the entire summer at the Rhine Camp, the prisoners of war finally emerged from this special integrated housing.

As five million German prisoners of war left the Rhine camp, the United States began to erase all traces of its existence. They couldn't leave it behind, in case something was discovered later. France also obtained what it needed from these five million German prisoners of war. Through de Gaulle's reasoned arguments, it obtained the right to use 1.5 million German prisoners of war.

There is no doubt that the management of such a large scale will fall to the military, as no other party besides the French army currently has the capacity to manage it.

As Chief of the Army General Staff, General Dracon naturally had some influence over how the French army used these prisoners of war.

Therefore, among the 1.5 million prisoners of war, 300,000 were Waffen-SS and some Wehrmacht prisoners of war who were found to have committed war crimes and were placed in Algeria as labor reform sites, which had a more punitive nature. Prisoners of war who committed lesser crimes were left in France for postwar reconstruction.

This explanation was accepted by various political factions within the French provisional government, and General Dracon also secured a pool of usable labor for Christian immigrants, including Maronites, helping them to establish themselves in Algeria.

The unit directly in charge of these prisoners of war placed in Algeria was the Jerusalem Regiment of the Young Division. Now that the German occupation zones had been divided, the Young Division's units had little chance of remaining on standby in the French-occupied territories. They would definitely be placed in the colonies, and among the major colonies, Algeria was obviously the most important.

Because the house in District 16 still needed repairs, and it wasn't yet time for Koman to have his own page on the household register, he had to take Ava Gardner back to his elderly father's house for a temporary stay.

Fortunately, he was not yet eighteen, so it was understandable that he was not independent for the time being. Ava Gardner was shocked when she heard this, "You are not an adult yet."

"Do you feel guilty about that?" Koeman didn't seem to care much about the age issue and offered an explanation: "No, I don't, but in France, you can get married at fifteen."

Koeman didn't know what went wrong. In many Western countries, minors can get married, including the Soviet Union, which was part of another bloc.

“Nobody said they wanted to marry you,” Ava Gardner said, revealing her villainous female supporting character expression again. “I’m just here in France to start a business and am staying with a friend temporarily.”

"So it turns out that American pioneers could live together. By the way, what do you think of the public transport in Paris?"

Koman sighed, "As expected of the big brother of capitalism." They finally arrived home while they were talking. The two took a bus home, and thankfully they were speaking English, so that their various lewd words were not exposed to the ears of the citizens of the old revolutionary area.

“Similar to the United States,” Eva Gardner replied to Corman’s question about Paris’s public transport.

Koeman smiled. It was shortly after the end of World War II that public transportation in the United States was about to disappear.

In the 21st century, the only public transportation system that most people can recall in the United States is probably the New York subway, but the United States was not originally without a public transportation system.

However, in order to make way for the automobile and aviation industries, the United States began to consciously suppress the public transportation system after the 1950s. Passenger trains were reduced to subways in a few cities, and the vast railway network within the country was converted to freight. Travel demand was concentrated on air travel and driving.

The demand for transportation did not disappear, which sustained Boeing and the Big Three automakers in the United States. Ordinary Americans simply cannot work without cars, which began when the United States abolished its public transportation system.

Speaking of this, Koeman had something else to say to Admiral Dragon, and after returning home, he waited patiently for the head of the household to come home from get off work.

"Didn't you go out to buy a house?" General Dragon asked with a smile when he saw Koeman. "Looks like your troops have made quite a bit of money in Germany."

“Housing is a basic necessity; I can’t keep living here in such a cramped environment.” Koman then changed the subject, “The same applies to the families of my comrades who immigrated to Algeria. I have some thoughts on this round of urban development in Algeria.”

General Dragon was very interested and listened to Koman's simulation of urban planning. "In order to quickly and economically solve the post-war housing shortage and urbanization problems brought about by industrialization, extreme standardization should be promoted in Algeria. Architectural design, street planning, and even the construction of the entire city should adopt standardized modules to achieve large-scale and efficient construction."

"Do all newly built towns use the same standard?" Admiral Dragon asked, frowning. "Where did they learn this system from?"

“I learned it in the Soviet Union,” Coman answered straightforwardly, though he also had some memories from before he was ten, but Admiral Dragon didn’t need to know. “The same standards can save a lot of time and labor, and for the Maronite immigrants, Algeria is a new home, so they won’t oppose standardized town construction and will assume that France does the same.”

(End of this chapter)